With the newly-released iOS 10, the iMessage app will introduce a boatload of new features, including the ability for users to really customize their messages with:

Stickers: static and animated pictures that you can include in messages, and

Apps: extensions to iMessage that let you use it to customize messages, send payments, play games and more!

One really interesting thing about iMessage sticker packs is that you don’t do any coding to create them! If you’ve got art skills but no coding skills, stickers are your chance to put something in the App Store.

For those of you with coding skills, you’ll find iMessage apps interesting — they’re apps that live within iMessage and extend its capabilities! You can build apps that use iMessage as a platform so that friends can play games, send customized messages, make payments, and more! We’ll show you how to get started writing iMessage apps.

When and where

You don’t even need coding skills to get something from this meetup. To make sticker packs, all you need is a Mac, Apple’s free Xcode software and a developer account (we’ll show you how to get these), and a little creativity. If you’re new to Swift but have some programming experience in just about any language, whether it’s Java, JavaScript, C#, Python, Ruby, or any other object-oriented programming language, you shouldn’t have any trouble following the iMessage apps presentation. We’ll make all of our presentation materials, and project files available at the end of the meetup so you won’t leave empty-handed!